The Giveaway

a cognizant v5 release september 02 2010

Table of Contents

 

 

“A keen voice, profound insight . . . devilishly entertaining.”

—Los Angeles Times

“Goldberg’s prose is deceptively smooth, like a vanilla milk shake spiked with grain alcohol.”

—Chicago Tribune

“[A] creepy, strangely sardonic, definitely disturbing version of Middle America . . . and that, of course, is where the fun begins.”

—LA Weekly

“Perfect . . . with all the sleaze and glamour of the old paperbacks of fifty years ago.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Striking and affecting. . . . Goldberg is a gifted writer, poetic and rigorous . . . a fiction tour de force . . . a haunting book.”

—
January Magazine

 

Praise for the Series

“Likably lighthearted and cool as a smart- mouthed loner . . . cheerfully insouciant.”

—The New York Times

“Brisk and witty.”

—The Christian Science Monitor

“[A] swell new spy series . . . highly enjoyable.”

—Chicago Tribune

“Violence, babes, and a cool guy spy . . . slick and funny and a lotta fun.”

—New York Post

“Smart, charmingly irreverent . . . pleasantly warped.”

—Detroit Free Press

“Snazzy.”

—Entertainment Weekly

“Terrifically entertaining . . . neat and crisp as citrus soda.”

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Breezy cloak-and-dagger ingenuity. [A] nicely pitched action-comedy hero: handsome, smart, neurotic, tough, funny, sensitive . . . Michael Westen is Jim Rockford and MacGyver filtered through Carl Hiassen. Entertaining, in other words.”

—LA Weekly

The Burn Notice Series

 

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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First Printing, July 2010

TM & © 2010 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

eISBN : 978-1-101-18866-8

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

 

 

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For Wendy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am, as ever, indebted to Matt Nix for letting me play with his toys, and for his advice and insight while writing this book. Thanks also to Lee Goldberg for his constant—often in the middle of the night—support and for knowing all too well the obstacles I occasionally face. And I am ever grateful to my agent, Jennie Dunham, for always knowing the right things to say, my editors, Kristen Weber and Sandy Harding, for believing in my work and, finally, the wonderful fans of
Burn Notice
, who have made me feel a welcome part of their community.

During the course of writing these books, I use several sources as despite all appearances, I am not, in fact, a superspy. The following books were especially helpful:
Combat Leader’s Field Guide
by Sgt. Maj. Brett Stoneberger and
The Little Book of Forensics
by David Owen. Also, as ever, please do not attempt to blow anything up or spy on someone based upon what you’ve read here.

1

When you’re a spy, conducting business inside a restaurant or bar isn’t just about finding a comfortable place to have a conversation; it can also save your life. You want to make sure you get out of a meeting without a bullet to the back of the head? Schedule your meeting inside a McDonald’s Playland. There’s no rule that says homicidal maniacs won’t kill you in front of Ronald McDonald and Grimace, but the typical murderer tends to avoid crowded venues filled with small children eating Happy Meals. You want to kill someone and get away with it, do it in the middle of the night, in the person’s home, and use a silencer on your gun and a pillow on the person’s head, which will help absorb the sonic boom the bullet makes while traveling through the air. Do it right and you’ll have enough time to wipe down all the surfaces you might have touched. Do it wrong and you can still be in a country without extradition before anyone finds the body.

In general, however, the best way to avoid getting killed or finding yourself in the position to kill someone is to live your life cleanly, pay your taxes, go on sensible vacations and then retire with a nest egg that will let you peter out in the fashion you’ve grown accustomed. That way you’ll be able to eat or drink anywhere you desire without first making sure you know all the possible exit points, which is precisely what I did when I walked into the Purdy Lounge.

The Purdy is a perpetually dark bar in South Beach that’s decorated like a 1970s living room. Specifically, a bachelor’s living room. Lots of sofas, recliners, lava lamps and sticky surfaces. They even had a table stacked with board games. I was there to meet Barry, my favorite money launderer. He had called the night before and asked if I could help him out with a favor. I had the sense he wasn’t looking for someone to pick him up at the airport.

After my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I figured out that the only obvious way out was the way in, I found Barry sitting across the bar in a ripped-up Barcalounger. He had something on his lap that glowed bright yellow, then red, then blue, then green and then repeated the sequence again, this time faster. When I was a little closer, I realized it was a game of some kind, which was a relief. I half expected Barry’s favor was going to involve me clipping either the blue or the black wire on this device, thus saving or killing us both.

Across from Barry was an orange butterfly chair and a brown beanbag. Neither looked comfortable. Not in 1976. Not now. So I just stood in front of Barry and hoped he’d get the hint. Or he’d stand up and we’d walk down to the Carlito, which at least allowed sunlight.

“When I was a kid, this game was like alien technology,” Barry said.

“What was it called again?” I said. “Lite-Brite?”

He flipped it over so I could see the name in the center of the game. “Simon,” Barry said. He set it back on his lap and watched the blinking lights with great intensity and then tried to match the pattern by pressing on the corresponding lights, but kept getting it wrong. “Like Hal.”

“Like Simple Simon,” I said.

“That sounds right,” he said. He tried to match the pattern again, but was met with only a blunt buzzing sound.

“Maybe it would be easier if you took your sunglasses off,” I said.

“See, that’s the challenge,” Barry said. “They’re tinted green. You know, to keep the harmful UVs away? So that evens the playing field. All the colors are the same now, just in different shades.”

“That’s fascinating, Barry,” I said.

“Keeps the mind sharp,” he said. “You want a turn when I’m done?”

“I’ll pass.”

I looked around the bar. The bartender was a college-aged girl with tattoos on her shoulder and neck. Not like a criminal per se, but like a woman who saw too many movies about women who work in bars or just listened to too much Lucinda Williams. One day she’d be seventy and walking these same streets with a portrait tattoo of Jimi Hendrix on her shoulder and would have to explain to her grandchild why she had a picture of a man from history on her skin. There were two men I pegged as German tourists—yellow socks, sandals, shorts with too many pockets—sitting on a sofa drinking tall glasses of beer and talking too loudly about how drunk they were while simultaneously setting their coasters on fire. There was a woman sitting alone at a table near where the DJ was setting up his rig at the other end of the lounge. She had the kind of face that made you think she might be famous or at least bought a lot of magazines with famous women on the cover. The difference was that she was sort of crying in a weird, huffing way, like she wanted everyone to know something was wrong with her, but didn’t really want anyone to talk to her.

The end sum was that it didn’t look like anyone here was planning on shooting me, so when Barry didn’t seem to take the hint and continued to let me stand and watch him play Simon, I pulled up the beanbag and sat down. Barry gave the game one more pass and then dropped it down on the TV tray erected next to the Barcalounger. I made a mental note to never allow my mother into the Purdy, lest she decide to turn her house into a hipster dive.

“You want a drink?” Barry asked. He seemed uncomfortable, which didn’t exactly make me excited. I like my felons to be comfortable. Maybe it was just that no one looks exactly in-the-moment sitting in a recliner.